Style Models:

After my draft I have been looking at other magazines to see which are the ones I have taken the most inspiration from, also the ones that have given me ideas of what I want to create in my magazine. This is important for my design because it enables me to realise what components of the magazines I'm reading will go into my own magazine and what I love the most about magazines of the same genre that are already on the market. Also with my style models I have been able to recognise what other magazines are on the market that are the same as my genre, because most shops only stock the really popular magazines such as NME and Q; I have been able to look beyond those and see the new and more quirky magazines that are more in keeping with the ideas that I have had originally. Magazines such as Clash, Dazed and Confused, etc have inspired me to think outside the box and push the boundaries on what is normal inside a magazine. My final magazine design will be slightly different due to the fact that I have thought of new ideas and those new ideas have sparked other features that I could possibly add to my design, and this is due to the fact that I have been able to look at different magazines and their layouts and features and by looking at them critically I have been able to see which aspects of that magazine I like the best and apply them to my own design.

The magazine that has influenced me the most would have to be Clash (in particular Issue 91, featuring both Earl Sweatshirt and Banks on the front covers)

For me this is how I would want my magazine to look, more so the front cover with Banks on the front because I love that photography (that is something I was intending to re-create however I struggled with finding a suitable way to do it within a studio) I also love the choice of font and how that was incorporated and laid out on the front cover because it looks so effortlessly placed on the page. For my next draft I might try and get a similar font and re-create this layout of the coverlines.

Also another aspect I like a lot is the different names for the issues (from L-R: The Festival Issue, The Tech Issue, The Fashion Issue, The Denim Issue), this is something I have tried to re-create this on my magazine already however I think I am going to alter it slightly (by just re-naming it). Also on these slightly earlier issues I really like the font used and again, the placement of the coverlines, I think it looks really classic and understated which is the look I would like to re-create on my final design. I have already started to develop my final design, it is a lot different than my first draft (implying to the front cover) and it also looks a lot different to these magazine covers, however I am still playing with ideas and I think I have time to experiment and see which design I prefer and see what fits the style of my magazine and genre the best.

Even though this magazine isn't quintessentially a music magazine (it is a women's magazine for fashion) I am still very inspired by the design of this magazine and it is one design option that I am thinking of because I think it could work in a music magazine context. The photography is something I am looking at as well and it is something that I am going to re-create; for example I am going to take the pictures and apply a black and white effect over the top to create a similar effect to 'The Gentlewoman'. Also with how they have different colours as the background with the white border surrounding the main image, I might see if it works on my front cover and whether I should include that on my magazine at all.

Draft Magazine:

Front Page:

This is the front cover for my magazine. As you can see I have started off by getting the masthead in the right place and working around that because i felt as though it was important to get that in check before moving on to the rest of the cover because this is what draws the reader's attention first and it is important to engage them early on because then you are guaranteed to get a wider readership later on. Next on the first picture, I was going to put a border around the main picture just to reference other magazines such as Loud and Quiet and also others which have used this design in the past; however I decided against it in the end because I felt as though it didn't really look original enough (however it is still something I'm interested in looking at maybe for my final draft!) and I decided to stick to the main photo taking centre stage on the cover, especially with the photo I have chosen because I wanted to fill the page with my models because they are the main focus and I don't want to detract from that at all! I found all of my fonts on '1001 Fonts' and downloaded them to my home computer, I chose this website because I thought they had the most fonts which appealed to my style more and the quirkiness of the the fonts really attracted me to the website. Some of these fonts are ones that I had found for my 'Colour Palettes and Fonts' page so this research was crucial for my magazine because I was able to find a number of fonts that I have later used. I added the addition of "The Unique Issue" in reference to i-D magazine because instead of issue numbers they tend to have certainly named issues. I have chosen to do this (and also to do issue numbers as well) is because I felt as though this is another feature on the magazine that would attract an audience because they would be curious to see why it is a 'unique' issue! I have kept the white background on the barcode because I have been doing research and the magazines that have inspired me the most (which you can see in other posts of mine) usually do this, and it still looks classy and relevant to the cover as a whole. I am quite proud of my cover, but I realise that this is still a first draft and I would like to still develop this idea further and make sure that it is up to the level that I expect of myself.

Contents Page:

This is my contents page. I have gone through quite a lot of ideas for this final design for my first draft to come out, and I still have a lot to work on to achieve a professional finish that I am wanting. I have put an effect on the main picture on this page to make it more unique and original. It adds a special effect on the white background which I think works quite well, however this is something that I might change again because I don't know whether it works for my magazine as a whole. Creating the contents page is one of the hardest parts of the coursework for me because it is so easy for it to look 'slapdash' and unprofessional; This I want to rectify because for my standards this just doesn't look right. This is a learning curve for me and since doing this page I have learnt a lot more about how Photoshop works and for my final draft I am planning to step up my game and create something that meets my standards. However I do like the fonts used (again found on 1001 Fonts) I think that they are quite different, and the layout of the text also is something that I am pleased with. I took inspiration from Clash magazine for the layout of the text as I thought that this was a good way of making the text look good and also to fit in a lot of information into a small area. I have also took inspiration from the black background in Clash and this is something again which I might change for my final draft as I want to see all my options and conclude what I want to do for my final design. Also something I realise now that I need to rectify in my final draft is the addition of the page numbers in the corner, this would have added realism and it is something that I am definitely not going to miss out in my final draft. I added a white border around the writing, this is because I have a black background and I still wanted the black writing so I had to do this to fit my design. However I like the look that this has produced and with the font style I have chosen I think the whole writing style really has worked well for the design and style of the magazine. I think what I would work on for my final draft though is the background colour and also the picture layout because it could look better.

Double Page Spreads:

This is the final design for my Double Page Spread. I am generally very pleased with his design, I think it fits into my target market easily with the unique layout of the text and also the kind of photos I have taken. Out of all the pages I have created so far, this is the one which I imagined in my mind in the first place. For this I have taken inspiration out of magazines such as The Wire, this is because I really like the way that they set out their articles because of the fact that they manage to create an interesting page, not only to read, but also to look at and this is what I wanted to achieve! I had started off, which isn't shown here, with a full image on the right hand side; I had decided that this didn't really look the way I wanted it too and so I changed it to two pictures to give, yet again, a more interesting page to look at. I have used the same fonts from both my contents page and front cover in this DPS, this is so I make sure all the components are connected together to make my magazine come together as a whole. I have tried on this piece t make sure that everything fits together and deleted and altered things that I think do not work as a collective. For example, as I said before, the full image. It just didn't work and I had to get rid of it. On the top image on my DPS, one of my models had a piece of hair falling down on her face; so for this I had to Photoshop that out and also I enhanced the photos to make them look slightly brighter so they stood out even more on the page. I chose to layout the text in this different way as well because I thought it would look slightly abstract for the reader to look at; also with the addition of the writing above the main article, to introduce the text, I like the fact that the font is different for both sections as I think it really sets apart the start of the article and the the main text. I have also added a bar across the top of the page, this is to connect the DPS to the rest of the magazine and also to show the page number. I think with this it brings the page together and makes sure that both the photos and the text are connected and look as one together.

More Covers That Have Inspired Me:

Here are more covers that have proceeded to inspire me. I am in the middle in creating my draft and I have been looking at more unusual pictures that have helped me to actually reach a new creative level. I want to be creating something different and original and to do that I want to see the magazines that have excelled themselves in being unique. What I love on these magazines is the simplicity and also the colours schemes. With magazines such as Betty (which isn't actually a music focused magazine) each of the issues they release coincide with each other and the colours, even though they're different colour schemes, work together all the time and it looks like the style of the magazine is really reflected on what the colour scheme is. Also Betty doesn't include the bar-code on the front of the magazine which is unusual and not really seen throughout the magazine community. This subtraction of this 'vital feature' really sets apart this design and the differently coloured backgrounds, instead of the usual white or mono-tonal shades, also attract the reader's attention. The rest of the covers I have found are also set apart by either their colour scheme or the style of photograph taken, and sometimes even both. This originality and uniqueness have really captured my eye and I'm sure they capture many others as well. 'Studio' magazine is one that has really had an effect on me and the complete yellow scheme of colour is really something that I may try to incorporate into my design;  especially on the cover, colour schemes need to be kept simple and this is a good example of this because it is such a bright colour that it is different compared to the usual black or white. All of these covers have really had an effect on my first draft and I am going to take inspiration from them for my final draft as well. Hopefully I will have the chance to be able to re-do a few pictures this is because I would like to get the same kind of effect that these magazines have seemed to produce.

Photoshoot for Magazine:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

This is the photoshoot that I have took recently for my magazine. However even though I have taken a fair few photographs, I have found that I have a lot of images that are not really suitable for my magazine because they are too blurry or have shadows across the face or background. Although, in saying that I wanted the background to be slightly darker and with more shadows because this is similar to what my chosen photographers do and I wanted to reflect that in my pictures. I have come to conclusion however that I may need to retake some of the photos, to experiment more for one thing and also to get more pictures that I am proud of because I am still quite inexperienced in taking photographs and I would like to build up my skills for future practise. I have found, however, many photos that do meet my standards and I plan to use them in my first draft.

Mock Up Design for my Magazine:

 This is my mock up design for my magazine, I have taken inspiration from a number of magazines to help me achieve this design that I have decided on, with magazines such as Clash and The Wire which with their simplistic design and original interface which I have found to incredibly inspiring when designing my own magazine because I have thought that if these magazines, that are in the public eye are able to achieve this and have a loyal following then so can I. I have tried to keep the same fonts styles throughout my whole design because I want there to be a connection between each page that looks obvious to a reader but is still subtlety done so that it doesn't look like the same page everytime!
I got my fonts from '1001 fonts', as I feel as though they have the most original and 'magazine-worthy' fonts rather than from what I have seen on other font websites.

Flat Plan for my Draft Magazine:

Front Cover: For my front cover I have created a simple design that reflects my intended design that I will be doing for my draft magazine. Here I have placed the photo in the middle of the cover with a border around the edge, with text at the bottom edge of the photo and at the top left hand side of it. This would be probably be different on the final design because I think the addition of a full image on the cover with the coverlines surrounding it would look better for my style of magazine. However because this is just a draft for my final design I still have time to change anything that doesn't look completely right. Also the font type for my draft will be different to this, as I have already found a font on 1001 Fonts I plan to use a number of fonts to create my magazine from this website. Also I have added the tagline 'The Unique Issue', this is a reference to i-D magazine because they do this on every issue that they produce and personally I think that this adds a certain charm to the magazine because it lets the audience know what to expect in the content of the print which is what I want to do for my magazine. 

Contents Page: For my contents page I have decided that I want a large image in the centre with writing over the top of that. I have taken inspiration for this from both Dazed and Confused and also Clash. They have a very unusual way of laying out their contents page and I would like to be innovative and create something different as well that will really catch the eye of a reader and persuade them to actually glance at the page because of the eye catching design. I have chosen to do such a large picture in the contents page because I think that this really adds a drama and elegance to the magazine as it is just something different to look at in the magazine.

Double Page Spread: For this page I am really interested in making a design that is very simplistic but still interests the eye enough to actually carry on reading. I like the thought of really focusing on having the pictures on one side and the writing on the other because I think that this makes the whole magazine look cleaner and slick. Which is what I want to achieve in my final design. I feel as though the text placement on the page is also incredibly important because that can also make for an interesting design and therefore again, engaging the reader to actually carry on reading the magazine article.

Language Register:

The language used throughout the main cover of this magazine is very witty however it also gets straight down to the point. The target market for this magazine would be people from about the ages of 16-25, so in that case what NME has to do is to really be able to connect to that audience; they seem to do that by selecting all of the right artists that this audience would generally listen to such as The Maccabees and Kasabian. This also relates to my magazine audience because I am also going to be focusing on the indie/alternative/rock genre, so really I can take inspiration from NME as to how they style their language throughout the cover and the rest of the contents of the magazine. I would say though that this type of language is more aimed at the male market and this can be inferred because of for one thing the fairly masculine layout, with the blue and red colours. However there is nothing on it that is really stereotypically female type of language. So you could say that NME is a unisex magazine because they want to appeal to both audiences however in doing that they have to cancel out the over the top stereotypes that most magazines do (such as the fashion magazine, Vogue, as it is strictly a women's only magazine). The typography also used on the cover is very clear and bold, this means that when in a shop you can clearly see which artist are in the magazine and whether it is a good idea to purchase or not. I think somebody who is not really interested in the indie genre would probably not be attracted to this cover because it is fairly simple but also busy and the colour palette used on the colour would not be something that they would really be interested in.

The language register on this magazine would be fairly similar to NME however because this is a higher quality, monthly magazine it means that they have more time to be able to produce a more sophisticated design and therefore text. Rather than NME, Dazed has decided to put longer cover lines on the page to show more of what is inside the magazine. This type of language, with the almost softly spoken nature of the text, represents its target audience because the people that would buy the magazine the most would be students or people older that are more interested in things more than just the artists themselves whereas NME just gets straight to the point about what is happening in the world of the artist. I would say that the language used on the front would attract a female audience because of the complexity of the coverlines and this would probably catch a women's eyes more than it would to a male eye. Also the colour palette is very much more soft and delicate than the NME cover which could suggest that Dazed are trying to attract the female readership. 

Magazine Covers - Inspiration